Survey: La Mamelle, Inc./Art Com

This is historical information; no longer maintain a physical space/active organization.

1c. Organization's annual budget.:

$50,001 - $100,000

1b. Primary activity[ies] of the organization.:

Exhibition Space

Performance Space

Printed Periodical / Publication

Presenting Organization

Part 2.

2a. Mission Statement:

La Mamelle / Art Com is a non-profit artist-run organization, active from 1975-1995. During this period, the organization was interested in alternative forms of making art, experimenting with form and material and questioning the definition and boundaries of art. The organization was involved in a multiplicity of activities including publishing, maintaining an artists’ space supporting performance art, exhibitions, video production and screenings, a library, distributing artist-produced works, and creating one of the first artists’ online networks.

2b. Organization History / Organizational Overview. Index of important events in organization's history.:

Established in 1975, the first venture of the organization was in the realm of publishing. La Mamelle Magazine, v.1(1) was published in summer 1975. The organization then opened an 8,000 sf space in San Francisco at the beginning of 1976 as an alternative exhibition and performance space. From 1975 through the 1980s the organization supported live art, electronic media including video, artist-curated exhibitions, a bookstore with artists’ publications. It established and supported a growing repository of information about new art activities worldwide, and the first Video Art archive in northern California. In 1980, the organization began using the name Art Com, and supported programs that promoted the intersection of the arts and technology. It programmed video and audio works by artists on community access television and radio stations, cable TV and collaborated with other artists on video works and telecommunications projects. As publishers, the last issue in print format of Art Com Magazine (formerly La Mamelle, then Art Contemporary) was published in 1984 and became an e-journal in spring 1986 with the launching of the Art Com Electronic Network. ACEN was one of the first interactive online artists’ networks, conceived as a ’virtual village’ that focused on building a cultural environment and creating art through a global participatory process. From 1980 through the mid 1990s, the organization also ran Contemporary Arts Press Distribution and Art Com Media Distribution, an entrepreneurial effort to distribute artist-produced publications and media to libraries, bookstores, and television stations worldwide.

Website Link to Organization's History / Organization Overview:

See http://www.library.sfsu.edu/dtong for images of art activities and preparation of the archives.

Where are these locations? [I.E. Home / Office of Private Individual(s) (i.e. Former Board, Staff, Funders, etc)]

Part 9.

9. Does the organization maintain archives for any other organization.:

No

survey_field_49:

While we did not &rsquo;maintain&rsquo; the archives of any other organization, La Mamelle/Art Com did collect many of the periodicals and information distributed by other alternative art spaces -- although by no means comprehensive, the archival material transferred to Stanford does paint a picture of alternative art activities of the 1970s-80s by many organizations worldwide.

Part 10a.

10a. Is the archive accessible to scholars, curators or researchers?:

Yes

Part 10b.

10b. Are there conditions of access for scholars, curators or researchers?:

No

Part 10c.

10c. How are arrangements made for access to archive?:

They are currently not available -- at Stanford, being store off-site until they process them.

Part 10d.

10d. Would you allow access in the future?:

Yes

Part 11.

The following questions address the historical materials (type, quantity and storage) of the organization.
11a. Paper Files and Documents:

Archival boxes for materials that went to Stanford that fit in boxes; otherwise boxed in non-archival receptacles.

13b. Are some or all of these storage units “archival”?:

Some

Part 14.

14a. Estimated Number of Boxes or Milk-Crate Sized Storage Units:

----

14b. Estimated Number of Archive Drawers:

----

14c. Estimated Number of Archive Notebooks:

----

14d. Estimated the total Linear Feet. ["Linear Feet" is standard measure of the quantity of archival materials on the basis of shelf space occupied or the length of drawers in vertical files or the thickness of horizontally filed materials. For example, a:

200 +

Other Archive Storage Units - Please describe below.:

300 linear feet of archival boxes if lined up (length of football field!) - Video in various sized non-archival boxes that went to PFA -- over a thousand tapes.

Part 15.

15. Is the historical materials - or archives - inventoried or catalogued in any way, either formally or otherwise?:

Yes

Part 16.

16a. Is there a key, index or finding aid to the materials inventoried?:

Yes

16b. Paper-based::

Written or Typewritten Inventories

Other:

Stanford will do finding aid/inventories when materials are processed; to transfer to Stanford, only broad descriptions of contents were written - including list of art periodicals.

Part 16 / Electronic Files & Archival Management

16f. Does the organization have a back-up program, or back-up schedule, for its electronic records and perform monitoring of its removable media (i.e. floppies, ZIP disks, CD-ROMs, DVDs, portable hard drives, etc.)?:

Yes

16g. Who is responsible for working with the archival material?:

Other - Please describe below.

Please describe:

Already transferred archives to Stanford University and Pacific Film Archives - they will be responsible for working with archival material.

Part 17.

17. How are new materials processed?:

We are not currently processing new material

Part 18.

18. What, if any, conservation methods are in place for both physical materials and electronic data?:

Not Applicable

Part 19.

19. What type of climate-controls are present in the area[s] in which the archives are stored?:

Not Applicable

Part 20.

20a. What are the goals for the historical materials for the next year?:

Would like institutions where archives were placed to start processing them.

20b. What are the biggest challenges to reaching these short-term goals?:

Funding

20c. What goals are in place for the historical materials for the next three to five
years?:

Doctoral students and curators have inquired about the archives and want access to them. Our goal is that they become available for future research.

20d. What are the biggest challenges to reaching these long term goals?:

Funding -- also, if these institutions wait too long, there will be a decreasing chance that the key players who could help with oral history and identifying materials will be available to help with the processing.

20e. Are there any additional goals for the organizations historic materials?:

1.

Part 21.

21. Estimated cost to achieve these archival goals for the next year.:

----

Part 22.

22. Estimated cost to achieve these archival goals for the next five years.:

----

Part 23.

23d. Other - Please describe below.:

Know scope of your archival collections, repositories where they may be placed -- negotiations may take years and parts may need to be handled separately, by different repositories -- have a strategic plan in place -- these factors may drive priorities, and how you process your archives.

Part 24.

24. What archival issues could / should visual arts organizations address
collectively in the next three to five years? Ranked from 1 (highest priority) to 5 (lowest priority).24a. Shared standards / protocols for digitization:

Promote professional standards / protocols for digitization

24d. Other - Please describe below.:

The 2nd item seems unrealistic - it would be better to find an established institutional repository that will keep your materials, preserve them, and provide public access to them in perpetuity.

Part 25.

25a. Is the organization a member of, or in contact with, any organizations concerned with archival issues?:

Yes

25b. Who?:

As Head of Information Services at the J. Peul Leonard Library, San Francisco State University, my own institution has many archival issues. ARLIS/NA (Art Libraries Society/North America), is concerned with all aspects of art libraries including archives and tackles many issues related to archives, preserving materials both in print and digital, digital initiatives, technologies affecting libraries and archives. I&rsquo;ve been an academic librarian and involved with LaMamelle/Art Com since 1977 -- I brought concerns from both arenas into the mix. My academic affiliation was a major driver in placing the archives at institutional repositories affiliated with research and higher education. -- Darlene Tong

Part 26.

26. Additional information, comments, observations, and questions.:

You didn&rsquo;t ask about references/bibliography about the organization. If this is going to be a searchable database to find out about organizations and their archival materials, you may want to ask for lists of publications ABOUT the organization, not just those published by the organization. I have a selected list that I compiled for Maurizio Nannuci&rsquo;s book that will be coming out from Zona Books in Italy about Artists&rsquo; Spaces -- all of the organizations could decide how they wanted to present their history -- for LaMamelle/Art Com, besides a narrative of our activities, I compiled huge lists of activities, publications, and works about the organization.

Finish

survey_field_149:

I wish to defer payment and allow AS-AP to use these funds to further AS-AP’s efforts to preserve the history of the alternative and avant-garde movement in America.